Area teams face football openers

Labor Day may not have arrived yet, but high school football season has. Bellows Falls and Springfield open their seasons in the month of August on Friday night.
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Area Teams Face Football Openers Submitted by VT Journal on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 3:23pm By Bill Murphy REGION -Labor Day may not have arrived yet, but high school football season has. Bellows Falls and Springfield open their seasons in the month of August on Friday night, while the Fall Mountain Varsity, competing with a junior varsity schedule in 2012 open on Saturday on September's first day. The Falls is the only team of the three which commences on the road and they play a really big game. They travel to Fair Haven, which many experts feel will be the team to beat in Vermont Division II circles this fall. The Terriers blanked Newport 2 scores to none in their second scrimmage session Saturday and combined with an earlier shutout versus Fall Mountain, have not been scored on as yet. "Our team defense looked like it will be equal to the task," coach Bob Lockerby noted about the traditional "Purple Gang. The coach went on to say, "This group seems to know what their responsibilities are and they carry them out well." They will have their hands full at Fair Haven Friday at 7 p.m. In transition to Division II last fall, BF did not qualify for the post season, but there are many a team in that division that will attest to their team defense, which only allowed 11.2 points a game during a 5-4 season and led the loop in that stat. Although the coach said, "There is a lot of room for improvement" on offense, he also pointed out the strong play of Zach Rawling, Carson Fullam, Ed Rodriguez and Stewart Shaughnessey on that side of the ball. The Cosmos were winless a year ago and new coach Kevin Tallman is pledging to turn things around, but realizes these things do not happen overnight. He chose to scrimmage a tough team in Woodstock (defending D-III champs and maybe even tougher this year) and was outscored 3-1, however the Cosmos coach saw enough good things to think that step one went in the right direction. "I can tell you that Woodstock is going back to the dance," Tallman said, "They came out and were strong and physical." "We had that deer in the headlights look," Tallman noted of his team after the opening Wasp offensive play, a 70-yard touchdown run. "From then on, though, we settled down and did many things well," Tallman summarized. The lone Springfield score came on a Kirby Goodrich 55 yard run on a deception play. Josh Rivers tacked on a two-point conversion. Tallman was excited about the reads that senior running back Cody Vandenburgh had against a tough defense, the play of Corey Wheeler on run support and the look of a couple of youngsters, sophomore Scott Laiviere and freshman Ian Morvan on defense. The Cosmos open at home at 7 p.m. Friday versus Otter Valley, who may have their strongest team since adding football to their dance card.